VITALITY. 



1. The contact of the soluble pabulum with the ger- 

 minal matter. 



2. The separation of the elements of the nutrient 

 substance from their state of combination as pabulum. 



3. The rearrangement of the elements, and the con- 

 version of some of these into new germinal matter. 



Nutrition is impossible unless living germinal matter be 

 present, and in every case in which it is known to occur new 

 germinal matter is produced. Nutrition is a vital process, 

 its occurrence is positive evidence of vitality, and nothing 

 like it has ever yet been effected by human ingenuity. 



OF VITALITY. 



How are we to explain the wonderful changes which 

 take place in the germinal or living matter, and how are we 

 to account for the capacity which this exhibits of passing 

 through orderly series of changes, the last of which seems 

 to have been provided for, and, as it were, anticipated from 

 the very first ? 



I regard "vitality" as a power of a peculiar kind, 

 exhibiting no analogy whatever to any known forces. It 

 cannot be a property of matter, because it is in all respects 

 essentially different in its actions from all acknowledged 

 properties of matter. The vital property belongs to a 

 different category altogether. 



That the properties of elements which disappear, or 

 are changed when compounds are formed, are really re- 

 tained, can be proved, because when each element is again 

 isolated it manifests its elemental properties ; but the vital 



